Roselle Park Planning Board eyes video ban

ROSELLE PARK - The Roselle Park planning board has tabled a draft resolution that could restrict residents' ability to videotape and then disseminate the video of board meetings.

On Monday, the board considered the resolution -- and the protests of a resident who presented legal precedents and videotaping practices around Union County.

The presentation opposing the resolution was made by Saul Qersdyn, who creates his own transcripts of public meetings and posts them on Scribd.com.

Qersdyn said that twice in the last year, he was prevented from videotaping by Planning Board chairman Joel Reed. Reed, reached today, declined to comment.

On Monday, Qersdyn gave the board a list of videotaping policies of 20 other Union County municipalities, which showed Union Township restricts the recordings. Qersdyn objected to regulation six of the proposed resolution, which restricts the ability to distribute video recordings of planning board meetings.

"My interpretation is if I want to post videos, I would have to seek prior written approval," Qersdyn asked the planning board. "Is that correct?"

Board attorney Mike Tripodi, who authored the resolution, said that was the case. Tripodi said that recording is different from broadcasting and that the board has a "right to keep its records."

"If I were to say right now, 'I plan to put this on YouTube tonight,' what would that mean?" asked Qersdyn.

The case Qersdyn provided to the board is Tarus v. Pine Hill. That case established that "subject to reasonable restrictions, members of the public have a common law right to videotape municipal proceedings in New Jersey," according to the New Jersey State League of Municipalities website.

Qersdyn asked the board to amend or remove the section prohibiting dissemination of video without prior approval.

Tripodi said the resolution could be modified so that someone posting video of a meeting would need to label it as an unofficial version, instead of offering it for prior approval.

Today, Tripodi reiterated his concerns that distributing video online could threaten the integrity of the board's official record -- the clerk's audiotape and published minutes.

"If certain things are excerpted and someone viewing it doesn't know that . . . would corrupt the official public record," Tripodi said.

He also said that the medium of video is different from the written word and said there is a greater risk of confusing members of the public with an edited videotape than with an edited written document.

Mayor Joseph DeIorio, who sits on the planning board, expressed concern that there were parallels between their draft resolution and the Tarus v. Pine Hill case.

"Even though the situations are not identical, there are similarities," DeIorio said.

DeIorio noted that in Tarus v. Pine Hill, public officials made statements about videotaping that were later used in court. For that reason, he advised board members to "be cautious" about what they said and to consider the matter in closed session at any future meetings.

The board decided to table the issue until a later meeting, possibly in August.

At the end of the night, planning board clerk Nancy Caliendo suggested a resolution.
"In Cranford, they don't have people videotaping it because they have it on TV," Caliendo said.
"Why don't we have it (broadcast) in Roselle Park?"